15 Jan 2021
The Department of Homeland Security is promising to issue a detailed report about the roughly 500,000 white-collar jobs that are transferred from American graduates to foreigners via the huge university-backed Optional Practical Training (OPT) program, which is often described as the younger version of the H-1B program.
The agency “is currently unable to evaluate the impact OPT has had on U.S. workers and foreign students who have obtained work authorization through the programs,” said a January 13 message from the Student and Exchange Visitor Program within the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.
“To remedy this, SEVP is announcing the development of a new unit the OPT Employment Compliance Unit that will be dedicated full-time to compliance matters involving wage, hours, and compensation … the first report will be published on ICE.gov by July 31, 2021,” said the statement. It continued: